What If?

[Miss Wiggle]

we've had a really serious chat this weekend about our tanks and the time/money they take up. we're going to give it a little while for things to settle down however we face the prospect of closing one of them down.

thankfully we're both agreed that the marine tank is definately staying in some form. however if we close down either the 60usg or the 92usg tank we may well upgrade the marine tank into one of those.

obviously long term this would mean more equipment LR etc etc, but for short term. if we just put the equipment, LR, fish and everything into a bigger tank, obviously with more water mixed up to the same salinity etc would it be ok to cope. as surley the LR is able to cope with the current bioload so if we don't add more fish it should cope OK or would we need to get enough powerheads and LR for the full tank before moving things over?

Only equipment thing I can think of that we'd need immediately would be heaters as they wouldn't cope with the larger body of water.

 

[Mr Miagi]

Heaters and powerheads are all I can think of. If you did tear down a few tanks, you could use their water circulation systems.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Heaters and powerheads are all I can think of. If you did tear down a few tanks, you could use their water circulation systems.

so we'd need to make sure we still had 20x turnover from day 1 of upgrading.

yeah we've got some big external filters (the 92usg currently houses an oscar and common plec) so we could clean out the filters, stick some rowaphos etc in them and run them for some more flow around the tank.

 

[Pheonix]

not as important but something too consider! what substrate do you use in the tank? having a larger footprint you will probably need a bit more substrate in there! however if its bb then you wont need to worry lol!

 

[Miss Wiggle]

not as important but something too consider! what substrate do you use in the tank? having a larger footprint you will probably need a bit more substrate in there! however if its bb then you wont need to worry lol!

yeah we've got a smattering of sandy type stuff, def wouldn't cover one of the big tanks, could easily pick up another bag to mix in with it though i'm sure.

 

[SkiFletch]

Oooh, bigger marine tank . Use the empty filters and heaters from the freshwater tank for flowrate and temp, should work out great . One last item to consider, try to keep corals within 1.5 feet of the center of the halide. Things like mushies and your candycan can go towards the edge, but the acros should stay underneath the halide

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Oooh, bigger marine tank . Use the empty filters and heaters from the freshwater tank for flowrate and temp, should work out great . One last item to consider, try to keep corals within 1.5 feet of the center of the halide. Things like mushies and your candycan can go towards the edge, but the acros should stay underneath the halide

yeah we'd figured that about the lighting, everything would be in the middle until we got more lights etc etc etc

not definite anyway just wanted to get the facts straight before we make any decisions.

 

[tmreynolds]

I don't care what anyone says, bigger IS better

Good luck with it if you decide to go ahead. If it were me, I'd do it

 

[Miss Wiggle]

I don't care what anyone says, bigger IS better

Good luck with it if you decide to go ahead. If it were me, I'd do it

yeah a big marine tank would be great, but it'd mean either re-homing my oscar, the first fish ian ever bought and the first fish he ever bought me. or closing down Ian's baby, his high tech planted tank that he's spent hundreds on

 

[tmreynolds]

I don't care what anyone says, bigger IS better

Good luck with it if you decide to go ahead. If it were me, I'd do it

yeah a big marine tank would be great, but it'd mean either re-homing my oscar, the first fish ian ever bought and the first fish he ever bought me. or closing down Ian's baby, his high tech planted tank that he's spent hundreds on

ooh tough one, what does Ian think?

 

[SkiFletch]

Yikes, tough indeed. Glad I'm not the one who has to make the choice

 

[Miss Wiggle]

we keep changing our minds, we're having problems with both tanks, algae wars in one and fish wars in another. so we're going to give them both a month or so to see if they settle down, but if the situation doesn't improve then we'll have to make a list of pro's and con's and see what goes.

have to bear in mind we're selling the house in a year or so and 3 big tanks in the living room makes it look small and cluttered, we could really do with getting it down to 2, and as much as the house they also need to look stunning to make a good impression on potential buyers. there's not really any doubt it would look most impressive to have a high tech planted and a reef tank in the living room, however our real sentimental attachment is to the fish in the other tank. It's not a descision either of us is looking forward to.